


Umbra

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Canon Compliant, Circumstantial Simultaneity, Don't Have to Know Canon, Don't worry, F/F, Multi, Scourge Sisters, Stable Time Loops, it is canon compliant, it works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale must be told<br/>A tale of injustice<br/>A tale of fear<br/>A tale of mistakes<br/>A tale of wrongs which must be made right<br/>This is our tale<br/>And it is one which must be told</p><p>[Much, much more Homestuck than Incredibles.  It may not seem that way in the first few chapters, but this is mostly an AU Homestuck.   That is canon compliant, also.  Yeah.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE: Screw the Paperwork  
Speed Demon did his best to keep quiet as he snuck along the metal rails above the main entrance. Stealth was not his forte, unlike his sister, but he did his best to hear what the man in the cloak was saying below him. As he slowly made his was down the empty stairs, he began to make out what man saying to the communicator. Dash suddenly wondered why he hadn't just tapped the line, but he quickly was glad he did not. The man in the cloak probably wouldn't have liked that. And who knew what the big guy would do to him if he found out. He shuddered to himself. That was a scary thought.   
From what Dash was hearing as he crept along the wall, the man was talking about a mission, a very big mission. He felt a wave of excitement wash over him – maybe this was going to be his big break in the NSA! Wait, what was that they said about roses?  
“GO. LOOK. AT. THE NEWS, MAN!” A tinny, muted voice suddenly blasted out from the phone with a volume unexpectedly loud, causing the big man to jump back in pain. He walked slowly towards another room, speaking into the phone, “Look, I'd like to, but there is no way I can without you-know-who getting suspicious. Can't you just tell me what's going on?” His expression kept getting darker and darker as the voice continued just quietly enough that Dash couldn't make out a word of it. He didn't dare get closer without risking being seen. Why did Vi have to ignore this assignment? If she was doing this, she could practically walk right up next to the speaker and lay her ear on it! “Thanks for nothing, Vi,” he muttered under his breath.   
The approaching footsteps of another figure suddenly broke him out of his mental tirade against his sister. The man suddenly panicked to hang up the phone as a slim figure appeared in the doorway.   
“Who was that?” she asked him.  
“Uh, nobody,” he stuttered as she tilted her head at him, “just-just a friend.”  
“I wasn't aware that Lucius was considered a 'nobody'”  
“We were discussing... matters which are best kept a secret from you.” That was the truth. They had called to talk about their wives' upcoming birthdays, which fell, remarkably, on the same day. “But, uh, do you prefer milk or nuts, when it finally comes to that harsh decision?”  
She smiled a huge grin, seeming to stretch her face slightly as she walked towards him. “You know I like good nuts,” she whispered into his ear. He swept her off her feet in a smooth embrace, his lips planted quickly onto hers.   
“I love you, too.”  
She smiled as she was set back down.   
“Jack is waiting. Bye, Bob.”  
“Bye, hon.”  
He was staring at the front door long after she left the house. Suddenly, he remembered what he was going to do, and Bob made his way into the living room. Dash had to move quickly to avoid detection, but that was no sweat for him. Bob sat himself carefully into the big reinforced papasan in the middle of the room, as he groped around for the remote. He finally found it, and turned on the news.  
His jaw dropped. “Oh my god...” He could not believe the carnage that was playing on the screen. Bodies were lying everywhere as a reporter droned on about the futility of the police's attempt to breach into a drug dealer's fortress. The images that were being shot from a reporter's helicopter looked like they were from the front line of Vietnam, not downtown. The undercover operation had been discovered when a gunfight broke out between two dealers vying for a spot in the abandoned parking garage. From there it escalated into a slaughter when the police tried to break in.   
The screen changed to show the mayor talking about how he had known that “something was going on in that underground labyrinth,” but Bob was already gone from the chair and was suiting up in his den. Dash stood slackjawed, staring at the television. He knew something was going on, but this was huge. He vanished across the house, running into his room where he jumped into his supersuit. Ah, he was waiting for the day he turned eighteen. The first thing he would do would be to register himself as 'The Speed Demon'. Then he could get himself a hotter suit than this retro thing. Sure it worked, but it wasn't flashy enough.   
Anyways, now he just had to convince Dad to take him along. He found him suited up, pacing the dining room muttering about how dumb it was that the NSA required them to get specific permission to do any super work.   
“Yeah, I agree. I mean, if they just sent us in when situations like this first come up, all those cops wouldn't have totally died like they just did.”  
“Well, we're going to stop this slaughter, no matter what the NSA says.” He did a double take as he saw Dash in his suit. “We? I don't think...”  
He was cut off as Dash interjected, “Come on, Dad. Just this once? Besides, it's better to have two heros, you know? Teamwork?” He wilted slightly under Mr. Incredible's glare. “Please?” Bob softened as he saw himself at sixteen, begging to be brought on a mission, any mission, just one to prove his worth. He chuckled to himself as he thought of how annoying he must have been. Besides, heaven knew that the kid needed to blow off some steam. That. Was for sure. “Fine.” Dash looped around the circular arch which formed the doorway between the living room and the dining room in a literal victory roll.   
He then started streaking around the house, blowing up clouds of dust and papers behind him. Yep, Bob was right – he did need to blow off steam. If he didn't get out, he would explode. Or the house would. They needed to plan. Storming mindlessly into a huge underground concrete fortress filled with submachine gun high on drugs was not the best of ideas, to say the least.  
“Dash! Go find out as much as you can on that garage! NSANET must have some information about it!” Dash stopped his race around the house to boot up the Apple. God, he hated computers – the darn things took FOREVER to think. Now, those speedy things that were on Nomanisan were awesome. You know, with the picture touch monitor? Anyways, the computer had finally started. He sat down at the command line and connected the router, which was hidden in a panel in the wall. This net stuff was sweet, though. He felt sorry for all the kids at the high school who didn't have the NSANET library to help them with their assignments. Granted, it didn't always have that much about the reproductive habits of marsupials, but it certainly helped.   
He had to stop letting his mind wander or he would crash the system. Dash shuddered as he remembered the verbal whipping Agent Rick had given him for that. He downloaded a file, which took about a half-minute to get through the network. Accessing the ASCII map of the garage, he started to grasp just how hard this operation would be. The thing was HUGE! It was like 20 levels deep, and that was just the below surface stuff. There were defiantly tons of snipers on the four levels above ground. Although E's suits were bullet proof, that didn't stop the nasty bruises that kept taking him out of commission during gunfights. And he hated it when they hit his facemask. That REALLY HURT. He knew he was rambling again, but hey, it's the writers' story, and Dash's mind is like mine. It runs at really high speed. And it was starting to derail and it was going faster and faster forming an random plot involving a black hole of pasta and... wait, the fanfic.  
Mr. Incredible was right behind Dash, thinking the same thoughts as he was. Well... mostly.  
“We're going to need Vi,” he said in a low voice, “but you know how she feels about this sort of stuff.”  
“Yeah. I'll see if I can convince her. You come up with the plan.”  
“I'm on it, speedo.”   
Dash began sprinting up the stairs when he was suddenly thrown the four meters off the balcony onto the tile below. A purple orb was floating nearby him, as an angry sister trying to catch her breath materialized inside. “Ugg,” Dash muttered as he picked himself off the floor, “you should really get better at dodging people when you're invisible. By the way,” he added sarcastically, “have I thanked you for making me fall of the second floor yet?”  
“Oh? Well you're so welcome. I'll do it more if you really like it,” Violet snarked spitefully while gasping for breath, “And it's easy for you to tell me to dodge – you have the ultra-fast reflexes. Then again, I don't suppose you're fast enough to dodge an overweight brother flying thirty miles per hour up the stairs, are you?” She dropped out of her bubble. “You should be glad I caught myself, or I wouldn't be asking you why the heck you want me to come with you on your illegal ego boost.”  
“Hey! This is to save lives! Not just for our own fun! Oh, yeah, let's just go run though a bullet-filled gauntlet maze, and knock everyone out while we keep from getting noticed. Fun.” Actually, it didn't sound too bad. Maybe he'd have to build one. Later.   
Before Vi could come up with a response, their dad came though the door. “We really do need you, Vi. They apparently have some kind of plasma cannons. Syndrome has been dead for six years, but he's still haunting us.”   
“I'm not just going for no good reason! I mean, it's just to get some hero work in. And it's illegal. You two can go, have your fun, but don't drag me into this nonsense!”  
Bob's face started turning red. “NO GOOD REASON!' he bellowed, “I'LL GIVE YOU A- LOOK AT THIS!” He turned on the television, which was still playing scenes of carnage. He turned back to his kids, preparing to knock some sense into their minds, but the sight of Vi (or lack of) and Dash plastered against the wall stunned him.   
He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I'm- sorry.” Violet turned visible again. “But look at this. A whole squad killed, another trapped in there, and yet another running for their lives. And all because those idiots at Washington won't let us help!” He practically spat out the last four words.  
Violet looked shocked at the sights playing on the set, and seemed half ready to give in. Weakly, she protested, “B-but the paperwork...”  
“SCREW THE PAPERWORK!” shouted Dash. “THOSE ARE PEOPLE DYING OUT THERE, AND YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT WHAT THE STUPID NSA THINKS?!?” Violet wore a determined look – she was ready to do whatever it took to save as many people as she could, but Dash continued, “I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I'M GETTING OUT THERE!” He turned to leave, but was stopped by a soft voice and touch on his shoulder.   
“Thank you. You're right.” Dash turned, but she was already hopping up the stairs to her bedroom. A minute later, she returned, fully decked out in her 'Invisigirl' persona, a black and purple jumpsuit which had always held a certain resemblance to a scuba suit for Dash.  
“Great, let's get out of here!”  
“Hold on, I have to get my foot braces out.” she scrambled back into her room. Gosh, girls took forever to get dressed. After what seemed like an hour to the impatient supers downstairs, they finally got into the jeep and pulled out. They trundled along the road, getting stuck at every light.   
Mr. Incredible made sure that nobody didn't know that he wanted the Incredimobile for situations like this. “Dad,” Vi reminded him, “that's exactly why they haven't given it back yet.”   
“It's been twenty years! I think I deserve it!” He was getting mad again.   
“You know what, let's discuss what the plan is. We can fight later.” Dash silently breathed a thanks to Violet. “Yes,” Bob replied, apparently thankful for the change in the conversation also, “so, as you know, there is a massive underground parking garage, which has been converted into a fortress. From what I've seen, there are snipers all over the aboveground structure. Demon, I want you to provides some entertainment for those snipers, while Vi takes them out on one side.”   
“Objection?” Vi interrupted, “How about Dash-” she rolled her eyes as he glared at her, “Demon, takes out the first few while they aren't expecting it, then he distracts them while I finish up the job. That way It'll take longer for them to figure out that there are two people after them.”  
Mr. Incredible thought this over while Dash looked at Vi with a combination of relief and disgust on his face. Sheesh, so she was going to make him start the job, and then she got to clean up after him? Sometimes he couldn't wait till she got out of the house.  
Bob spoke up.   
“Alright, I guess that will work. Then after we have that side cleared out, I'll punch my way though to the elevator. And then we'll smash a hole into the elevator tunnel.” They made a sharp turn into a dark alley. “Demon, you'll need to run down a level and call the elevator. You'll be going down into the underground part of the fortress, so I have no idea of what you'll encounter there. When the elevator comes up,” he paused as he turned off the car, “IF it comes up, we are all going to climb onto the top of the thing. Otherwise, Vi will have to get us down, though I'm afraid I'll have to do some redesigning of the elevator for that to work.” He opened the car door. “Now be quiet and follow me,”  
“Where are we?” whispered Dash. Without responding, Bob motioned to him to be quiet. The threesome stealthily moved down the alley, avoiding windows and doors while maneuvering around the rat-filled trash cans. As they neared the end of the alley, the sounds of gunfighting became louder, until they arrived at a they reached a tall barbed wire fence.  
“Bother.” muttered Violet. “How are we supposed to get over that?”  
Bob moved toward the fence, as if to rip it open, while Vi looked on with increasing concern written on her face. “What are you doing?”  
“I'm going to rip through it,” growled Mr. Incredible, as he prepared to tear it out of the ground.  
Violet almost screamed, ”It's electric! Look?” she pointed at a sign. “Get back!” Just before she finished speaking, Bob reached forward, only to be sent flying back, in a shower of sparks. Alarms started blaring on the concrete structure behind the fence. Well, more alarms.  
“Great.”  
“No!” shouted Dash, “They are going to shoot us and they are going to kill us and-”  
“Be. Quiet.” Vi bent down over her father, who was starting to get up from the ground. “Are you okay?” she asked, waving away the smoke rising from beneath his suit. Gosh, burned flesh smelled sickening, even more so since it was her dad's flesh she was smelling.  
“I'll survive.” He grumbled, shaking himself off. “You two go on, stick to the plan, I'll catch up later.”  
“Really? Are you sure-”  
“Yes! Now go! Every second we spend means more people have died! It won't save anyone if all we drag out of there are dead bodies. NOW GO!” A forcefield flickered around Dash and Violet. She adjusted the size slightly, making it bigger, and they began to slowly rise in the air. “I'm going to turn invisible,” she whispered while already vanishing into thin air, “so that they will only think there's one of us. Who knows, if they think you have force fields, they might not shoot at you so much. Okay?”  
“Sure.” They were only three meters in the air, and the fence was about eight meters tall. “But, uh, is there any way you could go faster?”  
“No. If I push it, I'll get a headache which'll keep me from fighting as well as I could.“ Still, she did increase the size a bit more, giving Dash a tingly sensation over his whole body as the lack of pressure pulled at his skin. Luckily, it was nowhere near empty enough to actually hurt him. After a helpful breeze pushed then over the fence, Vi made the field smaller, and they began to descend to the sound of bullets. “Ugg. They're firing. So just stick to the plan, stick to the plan. Dash,” he let the lack of his proper title go, “you're going to have to jump out and start running around. I'll stay invisible. Please, don't let them hit me. And- don't run into me. It hurts.” She smiled at him, not that he would see. “Thanks, and good luck.  
“Same to you.”  
“Ready?”  
“Drop.”


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO: Commence Operation  
They both landed and rolled with it before Vi put up a small shield around herself, hoping it would go unnoticed. Dash ran around her a few times, kicking up enough dust to obscure her when he zipped straight towards the building. As soon as the guards changed their focus onto Dash, Violet took down her shield and moved closer to the building. Soon, the snipers realized there was no way that they could get a clean shot on Dash, who was running at nearly a hundred mph. As Violet made her way though the blood and bodies to the garage, she noticed one who was still breathing. Bleeding profusely, but breathing. She touched her head cover, activating her communicator.   
“Dash – slight change of plans. I'm going to try to get one of these guys out of here. He looks alive – for now.”  
Violet barely made out an affirmative response though the sound of the wind. She moved closer to the body, to make sure he was it was still alive. She was shocked when he turned to her, obviously in extreme pain.   
“Help me. I trust you.”  
The effort it took the man to say this set off a racking cough which sent rich, dark blood squirting from his mouth and nose. She didn't have much time.   
Stepping back from the man, and therefore where the gunfire would soon be, Violet produced a small field around the body, enough to scoop it up as she lifted the shield into the air. As she expected, she soon felt bullets hitting it, but she continued to move it towards the road. A small crowd had already formed, watching Dash from the sidelines. Violet wondered if they had called the police. The headache from the constant pattering of bullets on her field was starting to become overwhelming, still she did her best to make it past the fence.   
The indigo bubble wavered as it topped the fence – she was losing control. It began to blink in and out of existence while she tried to keep it from forcible spitting the man onto the ground. She was so busy concentrating on the shield that she didn't even notice Dash coming – not that she would have been able to do anything about it anyways. Luckily, he just missed her, but the blast of air broke her concentration enough that she lost the field, knocking two bystanders down as the body hit them in a bloody pile.   
She hoped he would survive.  
A crackling voice in her ear brought her back to reality.   
“Vi? Did I hit you?”  
“Yeah,” she spat out, “you almost did. Be more careful next time.” She was blaming he death of that man upon him. She wasn't really sure that he was dead, but it a near certainty, plus, it was easier to be mad at Dash if she assumed he was.   
“What are you talking- why are you mad at me?” he sounded rather nonplussed at this latest development in the crazy story of her sister's emotions. ”Anyways, I got shot in the hip. I wish those guys had better aim, then they wouldn't hit me. I'm doing my best to run it off, but it hurts like-”  
She was in no mood to hear him complain. ”Really? Well. That's what I was going to ask you to do... so... see you?”  
“Whatever.” God, that punk got on her nerves. She had hardly made it halfway there when another voice rang into her ear. “Vi? Dash? Are you in yet?” It was her dad.   
“No.,” she replied tersely. “Soon.”  
“weregettingtheresoonjustgottakeepthebadguysdistractedwhilevitakesthemoutholdonjustasecondigottaavoidthesebulletsactuallyimgoinginigothimyes!” Vi could hear the sound of Dash dodging bullets while he was speaking so fast. While using super reflexes, time seemed to slow for him. He used that as an excuse for his motor mouth. “Awesome, I just took one of the freaks out. I'm going to rest for a second.”  
“Okay. Frozone called and said he might be coming.”  
“Might?”   
“Yeah, he didn't exactly hang up. More like dragged away by an angry wife.” Violet stifled a laugh – the picture of little Honey dragging the tall super while carrying on about 'derrin'-do' was too good to let up.  
“Vi? You okay? You sound like you swallowed a frog.”  
She nearly gagged on that. Dash could make her laugh so hard it was hard to be angry with him for long. She was still infuriated with him, but she'd just have to yell at him later.  
“Stop it.” she managed to choke out. “I'm getting close now. “Invisi out.”  
She nearly screamed when she turned the corner, coming face to the biggest, hairiest man,holding the nastiest gun she had ever had the misfortune to encounter before. He smelled bad too. He would be taken care of quickly, but first she had to get a heavy object to give some inertia to her punch. Finding something wasn't hard – after all, the place was a abandoned parking garage. She made a small shield around the chunk of concrete she had picked out, and quietly pulled into into the air. This was good, it had decent size. She swung the field towards him, hitting him square in the back of the head. The man crumpled to the ground. Had she killed him?  
Violet rushed over to the pile of smelly person, relived to see that he as obviously alive, yet he looked like he was on the brink of getting up already. Even after a few more bonks that should have given him a major concussion, he still seemed like he was just taking a light nap. She couldn't waste time on this, she had to hurry – it had been nearly five minutes and they had made very little headway. Moving deeper into the garage, she eventually came to the ramp down. She paused, uncertain of what to do next. A nasty looking machine began to ascend the ramp, startling her. Three men were pushing it up. Something about it looked familiar – had she seen one before? She stealthily followed them up, when she realized that it was one of the plasma cannons based of Syndrome's prototypes.   
“Hmm, I bet they don't shoot half as well as his.” Not only that, they looked looked much heavier. Something she could use against it. As it was about to move into place on the top of the garage, she made a small field under it, out of sight of the men pushing it. Quickly, she expanded it, knocking it a bit to one side as it reared in the air. As the man and machine tumbled down the ramp, she smiled to herself, even as she knew it would alert the fort sooner to her presence. Still, it felt good to blow some stuff up now and then, she thought as the pile of loose wires barreled into a group of guards, knocking them all off the platform with it.   
The resulting explosion brought nearly everyone on the top levels running to see what had caused it. Taking advantage of this, Violet radioed Dash and her dad to come in. They met at the lower floor “Dash, go.” He zipped down the ramp. This wasn't so bad – there wasn't really anyone there. He made his uneventful exit after punching the button.   
Two seconds later, he was back.   
“So, anything to worry about?”

“I don't think anyone even knew I was there.” Dash replied smugly.   
“Good. That's the way I like it.” Dash put his ear to the elevator door. It was coming, but it was a long way down.   
“It's working.” They stood a few minutes in silence until the 'woosh' of the elevator told them it had moved into position. Mr. Incredible broke down the wall as quietly as could be expected. What was not expected were the two sleek Gatling guns waiting for them on the top of the elevator.   
“Oh crap!” Reflexively, Violet threw a shield around the guns, trapping the bullets bouncing inside. God, what were these things? They hurt. She couldn't hold it. Bullets sprayed in a huge arc as the shield dissipated. Vi was unscathed, as the brunt of the bullets hit Dash, in front of her.   
”AUGG!” he cried in torment, “Why the hell didn't you just crush the thing?” Violet replayed what just happened – why hadn't she considered that? Of course Dash wouldn't fail to take a stab at her for it, the little brat.  
Scrambling for cover, she spat back, “It didn't occur to me! You try thinking up master plans while your head is about to split in two!”  
“This. Is. Not. The. Time!” Angry, Bob broke up the fight – for now. Why did his kids always have to be at each other's throats? Boots began marching up the concrete, much to the chagrin of Dash and Violet. Great. Just great. Now what were they supposed to do? She seethed with the realization that if Dash hadn't screamed, they wouldn't have come, well, not so soon, at lease. Some one needed a plan.   
”Stay here, I have a plan.” Dad could read her mind sometimes. “Vi, vanish; Dash, hide!” The guards started pouring in just as he finished speaking, hardly giving them time to comply. Now where did Dad go? He didn't just abandon them, did he? The men coming from down the ramp stuck together, afraid of what they might meet. As they approached the elevator, Mr. Incredible sailed over it, before running off again. Twenty-seven guns were brought to aim on him (yes, she did count), and a hail of bullets sprayed the concrete pillars. The activity set off whatever danger sensor was on the gun turrets inside the elevator shaft, because their gunfire joined the cacophony for a few seconds before a general cry of 'swordfish' went up among the screaming guards.   
The guns shut down promptly. The bloodied, but mostly alive, guards sat up, relieved that nothing worse had happened. They didn't have long to enjoy the moment, as a dumpster flew over them, trapping them and effectively blocking the doorway to the upper levels.   
“Come on, let's go.”, he called causality as he moved down the ramp to the agape stares of his children.  
“That was sweet, Dad! Especially when you threw the- ”  
“Wow. Just wow. I guess they didn't-”  
“Save the praise for later,“ he interrupted in a low, almost tired voice, “I'm worried.” Not good. “They shouldn't be that prepared.” They kept down the vacated ramp for two more levels, until they came to a huge wall with an equally large door in the middle, but firmly bolted down. Of course the most obvious solution was to smash it through, and they did just that. Not wanting to risk a repeat of the incident at the elevator, Vi threw a shield over the hole just as it was formed.   
She was thankful she did, because several remote control turrets mounted on the wall instantly took aim and let loose a mist of bullets that would have been beautiful had it not been so dangerous. Without missing a beat, she pushed the field out from the hole into a sphere, in a motion that closely resembled blowing a bubble. She smashed the turrets one after another – there actually weren't that many, though you wouldn't know that from the piles of used casings littering the floor.   
After the immediate region was secured, the trio stepped into the dimly-lit wasteland of fallen men and spent bullets. Blood obscured the floor – supposedly was this all that was left of the trapped squad?   
“Search for survivors,” Violet commanded through her initial impulse to empty the contents of her stomach onto the other bodily fluids on the concrete ground. Dash moved as fast as he could without losing his footing on the slippery ground, quickly spotting a group of half-alive men piled on the ground together. Violet and her father crowded around the three unconscious figures, both recognized one of them as a man from their block. What had he done to deserve this? He had five kids an loving wife – What had any of the men, for that matter, done to deserve this? Dad gave voice to her thoughts, “Why them?”  
There was no answer. They stood there in an eerie calm, lost in thought, surrounded by the fallen.   
Suddenly, a huge door opened door opened behind them, abruptly sirring them out of their musings. Revealing... nothing? A dark, empty hallway stretched before them, smoothly curving down into the heart of the fortress.  
“Well, no need to go down the spooky hallway!” Dash spoke up, breaking the tense silence, “Let's clean up here. “   
Violet and Dash moved away from the open door to tend to the survivors, leaving Mr. Incredible standing there. He raised a hand.   
“Wait.” The two other supers turned to look at him.   
”This is supposed to be a dealer's hideout, right.” They nodded – what was he getting at? “So,” he continued as he lifted the group of fallen men, “where are they? Where are their setups? Where are the drugs?” Violet nodded again, she had been thinking the same thing, but made nothing of it. Did this mean...  
“What's really going on here? That's what I want to know.” He turned to them. “What do you think?”   
Violet was indignant.“Wait a second. I don't remember signing up for this. I'm here to rescue everyone trapped in here, thank you. End of story.” Secretly, her interest was piqued, also though. But she wasn't going to go a big, scary hallo n a whim. Dash had that much right. Nope, she was just going to stay here and get anyone left alive out. She did not want to go find out what might be down there. No she didn't. Not at-  
“So, who's going?”  
sh looked rather nervous. Violet looked... well, Violet. She had the look nobody else could imitate, somewhere between about to make a snarky remark, and eager, ready to go. Whatever that look was, Bob took it as a no.   
“Well, okay, I'll go. Come looking for me if I'm not back in fifteen minutes.” He turned and stated down the hall.   
“Dad... “ He stopped and turned. “Shouldn't I go? N-not like, I, I want to go, just, uh, you know – Invisibility? Yeah?”  
He turned to her, smiling. “I knew you would want to .”  
“No, it's just: it's not: I'm-”  
“Oh, come on!”, Dash groaned, “Just go have fun.”  
Eye roll. “Whatever.”  
“You know what I mean.”  
“I don't think so,” she said with a smile. “But I'll pretend I do.” She vanished, but her bloody footprints could be seen tracing a path down the ramp, until she noticed and wiped them off. Dad's words echoed in her mind – “What's really going on here?” She was determined to find out.   
She moved down the empty hall, silently and invisibly approaching the deepest levels of the fortress. After passing multiple metal/concrete setups, more a pile than a wall, apparently blocking where normally cars would exit the ramp to park in the garage. A few minutes passed, seeming like hours as she did her best to keep quiet enough that the turrets sticking out of the wall didn't notice. Eventually, she entered a better-lit area, without all the signs of 'remodeling'.   
Keeping to the side, she heard a faint humming as the approached the still-obscured end of the spiral. Clearly, whoever designed this place didn't take into account that a car coming down this ramp would be completely blindsided as another car came up. Although she was nearly twenty feet from what sounded like the end, she still couldn't see it as she hugged the sides.   
Finally, it came into view. Still hiding behind the corner, despite her invisibility, she came face to face with... a huge elevator? At least, that's what it seemed like. In front of her, was a massive floor suspended inside a giant hole in the wall, ever-so-slowly descending to the bottom, as if is was being hauled by chains. On the floor were two more, yes, you guessed it, turrets set up to face each other.   
She suspected that the ramp used to descend further, but the wall to the side the elevator was firmly stuffed up with concrete slabs and sheet metal., much like the other entrances to the parking levels behind her.   
She guessed that they remodeled this place so that she this place so that any visitors, wanted or not, would have to make the slow, painfully visible (for most) decent to this elevator, when they could ascend back up to whatever as behind those metal walls. Dad was right – they were prepared. The railings on the sides of the elevators fell down to the sides to act as a sort of ramp for the passengers on the elevator.   
Except there were no passengers. The empty lift beckoned to her. Cautiously, she crept to the the lift. She did her best to mask the sound of her footsteps as she gingerly inched her was onto the the metal of the lift. She hated the corrugated sheet metal beneath her feet. Although she hardly made a sound as she stepped on it, every minuscule creak sounded like a brass ensemble blaring to her ears. Every sound meant the possibility of death. And she didn't really appreciate that possibility at this moment. Unless it, like, involved rising to some sort of, I don't know, God Ti- …nevermind.   
She felt her way along the side of the lift – not wanting to get too close to the any one of the turrets, but not wanting to be directly between them and risk exposing her self if it were a trap. She held her breath as she settled into a position, prepared to throw a shield around herself at any time.   
Now what? Yes, she could squat like this on the lift for the rest of the day, but that didn't rest will with her back . She looked around for any buttons or switches or- wait, there was one right nest to her. It was marked 'activate'. Well, that helped, she noted sarcastically. Who knew what it activated – the lift, for the bullets? She didn't care to find out. She did her best to hold still.   
A minute passed.   
She desperately wanted to pop her back – two minutes passed.   
Her legs had gone numb – three minutes passed.   
It was official, she could absolutely not feel her legs – four minutes passed.   
Now she was afraid to move anything, for fear that pops and creaks would come storming out of her joints. Did I mention that five minutes had passed?   
She gritted her teeth as her back felt to be permanently reconfigured into a new shape – six minutes passed.   
Her hand soundlessly touched her belt, notifying the rest of their little special-ops squad that no, she wasn't dead yet. Seven minutes passed.   
She was done.   
“Screw this,” Violet thought to herself as she tried her best to quietly stand up. A single LOUD pop from her knee (which she could neither feel nor see, making it nearly impossible to control) echoed out of the lift and down the hall made her reconsider. The two turrets glowed blue and began to load ammo into their barrels. Extending their poles until they were at face height, they began to swing back and forth as an ominous rumbling reverberated through the floor and her feet.  
Great. She considered running out of here, hoping that the noise would mask the sound of her clumsy exit. Suddenly, she was violently thrown off her unstable feet as the lift jerked up repeatedly. The sound of her crashing onto the suspended metal plate was deafening. She unsuccessfully tried to get herself back on her feet quietly, failing in both regards. Every time she put her foot down, it came down way harder than she wanted, and not when she thought it would land, throwing her off-balance again. Tiny, knifelike strings of feeling began to course through her left leg again – But it did nothing to quell the storm of crashes she was making. When she finally caught herself on the railing, the turrets, remarkably, had seemed to have noticed nothing. They just continued swinging back and forth blindly. If they couldn't hear anything, the irony would kill her. She winced as she finally got her back mostly back in place. Ugg, she meant kill her twice.   
The lift ground its way slowly up the chute and past the levels hat had been concealed before. The barely lit floors were filled with poorly-designed cinderblock walls, syringes and smoke, but what really caught her eye were the guns. Everyone had a gun. Guns were lying against nearly every wall. Shotguns, rifles, Gatling guns (they seemed to like those), some other guns she couldn't identify, some which she recognized with fear, some that looked like more Steampunk than than... what? She furrowed her eyes. What the heck was Steampunk? Whatever.   
The point was, there were a lot of guns. Probably more guns than people, now that she thought about it. She impatiently noted that the lift was still rising. How long was this thing going to go? She looked up, trying to find the top. It looked like it might go all the way up to the surface. She was going to jump off anyways, because whatever she was looking for, it was probably up, not down. She jumped off the off the lift. She easily landed, coming to a stop before a group of armed men marching disorderly towards the lift. Looking behind her, she saw that the lift had stopped at the level she had jumped off at. Well, that was rather useless. Oh well, at least it was fun.   
But, she had a big bunch of burly boys bearing down on her, so that would take priority. This was is going to be messy. She stepped to the side, allowing them to pass, then clocked one in the head, knocking him into the rest of the group. She smiled invisibly as the idiot kicked many of the other men down with him, proceeding to get up from the tangle of arms and feet, and punched three separate people, claiming that the they responsible for the bruise on his face. Naturally, then each punched three other people, leading to a chaotic mass of flailing fists. Violet was standing, back against a wall, enjoying the scene. One guy, instead of focusing on smashing in the faces of all those around him, instead struggled out of the heap. He pulled one of those ridiculous guns oft of his belt, and pointed it at the pile. The air seemed to become gain a thousand , as a deep vibration she couldn't hear pulsated throughout the concrete. The men it was focused on yelled in agony, clutching their ears as all fighting stopped.   
The man released the trigger and holstered the sonic gun again. It felt like a weight of a thousand pounds had just been lifted from her shoulders, and judging from the reactions of the men the gun wasn't directly focused on, she wasn't the only one. As for those who were pointed, it was a different story. At best, they stumbled around, unable to regain balance. At the worst, blood was flowing slowly from their mouth, as they lay motionlessly on the ground.   
“Unfortunately,” the man with the gun sneered, “it looks like one of our friends has had a small misfortune.” Those who hadn't been deafened laughed at this mockingly. “Oh, it looks like something happened to your eardrums. What a shame. Don't worry, they'll grow right back int!. Wait, you can't hear that. Aww... poor things. Let's see of this gets the message over more effectively.”  
He raised his heavy boot, and brought it down on the hand of one of the men, breaking one or more of his fingers, if the ominous snap Violet heard was anything to go by;.. “Get up already. We have police to kill. “ He gave the down man another kick. “Get up.” Another kick. “GET UP!”  
Violet winced inwardly with every kick tho howling man revived. She hated to think that she had brought this on him. Forming a small force field behind the ringleader's head, she bashed it against him as hard as she could. However, she had forgotten to place anything of weight inside the field, so it bounced harmlessly against his head and away, beyond her control. Great. The man looked up, having felt something brush against his hair. “Hmm,” he he said as he called off the beating, “it seems we have an intruder among us.” He pulled out a minigun. Violet furled her eyes. Where had that come from?   
“A super intruder,” he added, staring straight a Violet. His eyes narrowed as he fingered the trigger. Violet nearly fainted when he finally swung the gun away, his eyes never seeing the invisible girl.   
She ran down the hallway, as fast as she could, with his voice carried after her. “Shoot first, talk later. You four search, we'll continue...”  
She kept running until she reached a fork in the path, neither of which lead to the elevator. “Crap,” she thought to herself, only now realizing this, “I went the wrong way.” She made her way back to the shaft, more carefully this time. When she entered the clearing she was previously in, she felt sick. Before her were three bodies, one the kicked man, two new – gunned to death by guards looking for her. She had practically done this herself. Her eyes clouded up. “I'm sorry,” she whispered as she rand her hand along their bloodied torsos, “I'm sorry.” She wanted to stop right there.   
Why did she have to go on?   
Why did she have to be here?   
Why was she born a super?   
But she couldn't cry invisible tears right now. She had to keep going, or more people would die. Oh gosh. She had nearly forgotten that the group after Dash and Dad. She reached for her belt again, letting out a waring signal to them.  
She peered down the chute. Yep, the lift was down there, and it was still descending. And as she had guessed, the party of men was on it. Hmm... How to get down there? She stared at the receding figures for a while before she formulated a plan. Yeah... that might work.  
She backed a few steps away from the shaft, and took a running leap over the guard rail, falling... falling. Violet righted herself in the air before creating a field around herself, mentally bracing herself for the impact. One of the men looked up and pushed away those around him from where she would hit. Good, she thought – now she would stand no chance that any of them would be killed. But then again, she quietly mused as she hit and bounced off the lift, “I'm nowhere fat enough to do any sort of damage.” She deactivated the shield and flipped towards the level above. Her heart racing from the exhilaration of the jump, she groped for a hand hold. With a firm pull, she was over the ledge, and on the the floor. Now, she had to find a way to go deeper.   
Violet turned around, eager to see what this floor held for her. Cold cinderblock stared back at her. She ventured a little into the mass of walls, making sure to remember where every path led. My god, the place was a maze! Whatever secret way there was down, it was defiantly in there. She stopped suddenly, coming back into reality. Wait, which way did she turn? She swiveled behind her and attempted to retrace her steps. Great. She was lost. She could easily bust her was through the walls, if it came to that, but she sincerely hoped it wouldn't. In the meantime, she would either press forward into who-knows where, or she would try to find her way out. She glanced behind her – should she keep moving?   
How she wished that something would come along and keep her from having to make a decision. She kept glancing back and forth, flustered. She needed to find – find what? So far, nothing had been glaringly obvious that there was another operation going on here – maybe they were just prepared, and no more. And she sure couldn't find out anything if she was lost forever among cinderblock walls. She tried to convince herself that yes, she should get out. She turned away, and began walking in the general direction she though she had come from. That was was the best choice, right?   
“Right?”  
She moved with her hand along the wall, trying to stir some muscle memory of the way she came. It didn't work so well. She couldn't even tell which direction she was trying to go anymore. She had a compass built into her belt, but she wasn't smart enough to think about checking it before going into the labyrinth.   
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she berated herself, banging her head against the wall. Here she was, lost in the heart of a concrete underground bunker, with no idea of where she was even facing, surrounded with people who wanted her dead. Had she said something to that extent before? Shoot, she was getting all snarky again.   
The lights went out.   
“Okay – this just isn't funny anymore.” She dropped the invisibility – she couldn't see a thing, except for the residue glow of the bulbs, and that was fading faster than she wanted. In a few second, it whole place would be blacker than anything she had ever experienced before. This was just so ridiculous. THIS WAS SO RIDICULOUS! If she hadn't been so annoyed, she'd be laughing right now. Meh. Apparently, the conditioner had gone out also – she could hear stuff she couldn't before. Such as the battle beneath her. She facepalmed. Why had she not thought of that before – she could just bust a hole in the floor!   
Violet expanded a forcefield between between the floor and the ceiling – she wasn't sure which one would give way first, but either would be very helpful. The orb grew to meet the concrete, bouncing until it was firmly wedged in. She kept putting force into it as it became harder to do so. Closing her eyes to help her concentrate, she did all she could to focus on the ball before her, and not the pain growing across her head. A cracking sound started to echo around the meandering hallways. She stopped trying to make it bigger; instead she just let the size it already had do the work. The cracking sporadically grew, sending shockwaves through her feet. She could hear cinderblock walls start to fall around her. Was this such a g-  
With an ear spitting crack, the concrete before her and above her gave way, nearly simultaneously. The walls around her practically flew apart as it all fell in a pile of deadly boulders. As fast as she could, Violet put a forcefield around herself. The floor seemed empty beneath her, but she couldn't tell. The pile hit with a thud that shook her brain to sleep. Fighting the blackout, she forced her mine back from the brink of consciousness. She HAD to keep the field up! Suddenly, she was falling. There was light emanating from the cracks between the slabs falling with her.   
Her head swam as she fell, and she slept before she landed.   
> [s] END ACT 1  
Demon and Incredible were thick in the battle when they heard the collapse. They looked at each other, then moved down the ramp. Whatever had just happened, it was either very good, or very bad. Demon trotted along beside his father for a while, then sprinted forward. What had happened here? The floor (ceiling?) had completely blown up, smashed through with a lot a power by something. It was like someone had punched straight through three floors of reinforced concrete. Huh.   
It didn't seem like there was much strain on the building, so he moved closer. Unexpectedly, the pillar next to him blew apart with a snap, throwing him across the ramp. He was lucky it did, because the floor above it broke off, hardly giving him enough time to sprint away from it, despite his head start. The steel and and cinderblocks started to fall from the floor above as the whole building began to quake. More and more pillars were giving out. Demon made a Dash as fast as he could back to Dad.   
“Get out of here!” Dash yelled above the cacophony, “the whole place is going down!” Bob's eyes darted to the rescued men that waiting to be brought up.   
“We've got no time for that! Leave them – we don't know that they wouldn't be able to be rescued later. Just get out of here!” They both ran, as with a crack, the floor above them started to give way under the stress it was holding. Before them was the crushed metal door they had entered hot a half-hour before.   
“I don't want to punch through it,” Incredible protested, “it looks like it might be holding some weight.” They covered their ears as the ceiling fell behind them.   
“Jump up on that before it collapses through the floor below – quickly!” They scrambled on top of the mountain of broken stone. They jumped high into the air, and landed on the maze level where Violet had been just earlier. Dash and Mr. Incredible made short work of the 'flimsy' walls. They were nearly at the stairwell when the floor gave way beneath them. Luckily, nothing was falling on top of them, but they busted through two levels before they had a chance to get back up. They watched in silent awe as the pile they were just standing on fell further down until they couldn't see it at all. They looked around – they were standing on an unsupported pillar of levels – if any one of the pillars beneath them gave out, there was nowhere else to go.   
The tower began swaying. Mr. Incredible jumped spectacularly to the ceiling three levels above them, and punched a hole in it as he scrambled through. Dash followed suite as well as he could, rapidly flapping his arms in a desperate attempt to stay aloft longer. He always felt so stupid when he did that, he thought as he pulled himself up a level, but it worked!   
“Are we at the surface yet?” Dash asked his father, who busted a wall beside them in response. Just dirt behind it. “Nope.”  
They were at the edges of the building. The entire center had given way, revealing a bright blue sky above the. They kept jumping and punching their way to meet it. Fires had started below them, probably from broken electric wires, but the building had mostly stopped collapsing. They reached the level where they had 'thrown away' that group of guards. The elevator was gone, but the dumpster was half hanging over the broken ground. Dash grabbed and tilted it until it fell off, freeing those underneath it. They raised their guns, uncertain of how they should greet their captor/freers.   
Dash rolled his eyes. “Escape first, shoot later!” An explosion beneath them, and a sea of burning liquid poured out from a few levels below. Tar? That would make a nasty fire. Dad punched a hole through the wall, and they stumbled into the sun – and into the cameras of hordes of reporters.   
“This is just what I don't want to deal with.”  
Dash nodded in assent.   
> END INTERMISSION  
Violet awoke to the smell of smoke. Thick smoke. Where was she, and why as it so dark? She sat up, knocking her head on something hard a few inches above her face. Oh. That's right. Oh gosh – she survived! “Ohmygod ohmygod imalive imalive imalive!” She squealed and danced the best she could without having any room to move. Giving up the attempt, she coughed. Why was there so much smoke? Thanks to E's suit, she wasn't hot, but it was still rather warm in here. She made a forcefield which she used to push away the blocks above her, only for more to fall on top of it. Well that didn't work. Instead, she formed a field around herself and expanded it. Surely, it couldn't go as wrong as last time. It was much easier to make now, as instead of firmly anchored walls and floors to break, she just had to slide loose slabs out of the way. She made it as big as she could before the vacuum started to hurt her. Tons of concrete fell on top of her as she released the bubble. Quickly, she made another dome around her. She sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought. She saw a light in one direction, so she decided to focus on moving there.   
Violet made decent time by expanding the dome she was in, releasing it, then making another one in the direction the she to go, allowed the blocks to settle back on top, and repeated. It gave her a slight headache, but she was more concerned with the condition of her body. She was so bruised it was ridiculous. She could hardly move. She was also certain she had sprained her ankle, which screamed every time she tried to move. it. Still, it was a miracle that that was that that was all the injuries she had sustained. She couldn't help but wonder if some of that 'plot armor', as E had called it when she sewed onto her suit, had helped her. She felt sorry for all those who didn't have it. Awesome stuff, it was.   
The light had gotten stronger now, and she was running out of air, as more smoke was pulled in every time she released the semi-vacuum of the dome. The lights had apparently gone back on around her, because their annoying orange glow was everywhere. What if... “Oh no.” Her 'lights' were a pool of burning liquid, pouring and streaming as the inferno grew. No wonder she couldn't breathe. All around her, there was a burning, sickening orange glow. But in front of, her, where she could see the fire directly, every stone was covered with flame, the base of a pillar of fire reaching up at least twenty levels. What in the world had happened to this place?   
Violet panicked. She domed-ran as fast as her broken head and ankle could take. She had to stop. She had to stop. It just hurt too much to think, to walk, to breathe. There was a small cave which she hoped would hold. She dropped her forcefield and ran into it as huge slabs of concrete fell. She had to keep fighting though. She did not want to die of asphyxiation. Nope, not going to happen. She put a field around a large slab next to her, and pushed it up. By adding little bursts of speed , she got it bouncing back and forth In a steady rhythm against the ground, and the slabs above. She bashed through several rocks in this way before she quit it again.   
Her head just couldn't take this. A breeze began to blow through the rocks as the roaring flames around her grew stronger. Just what she needed – to be in the center of a firestorm. She had one last, crazy plan. Putting one hand to the boulder above her, she hauled herself into the tiny space. Violet did her best to creep her way through the rocks and up. Spaces which weren't big enough she pushed out a bit with a well-placed field. The bigger blocks were at the top, just as she had hoped. Fire had spread to beneath her, and flames could be seen shooting twenty feet up in the air around her. The heat was unbearable. She hadn't though she could make it this far with her foot. Now for the crazy part.   
Violet made a small field around her, and waited for the heat to catch her. She started to rise in the hot air, but she was running out of oxygen in the airproof wall of the forcefield. The fire was still rising – fast. As soon as she was blown out of this crack, she could increase the size of the bubble to get higher faster. For now, she waited. The blaze was all encompassing now. Flames were like a tower of heat of all sides of her, and beneath her, the fires were shooting up quickly. She waited some more. This was not happening. She was starting to sink from lack of buoyancy, not to mention that she was nearly out of air. Dropping the field, she landed on the hot concrete beneath her. The heat was unbearable. Actually, she really meant that this time.   
It felt like she was over the world's biggest bonfire – which she was. Fire vortexed into the sky, as hot air rose in a burning updraft, pulling air down from all sides to fuel the raging blaze. She was practically in a tornado of roaring, screaming flame. She couldn't breathe. The shock from the blast of burning air knocked her to her hands and knees, where she lay, panting, on the blistering stone. The rocks began to shake as concrete exploded from the heat below, shifting the entire pile. She was going to die here – she knew it. The flames were scorching her from the bottom. Burn to death, nice and peacefully, like a in front of a fireplace with a - “NO!”   
She couldn't talk without roasting her throat, yet she screamed. “NO! I. Will. Not. Die!” With burning vigor, Violet leapt into the air and formed a bubble. She had even less space than before since the pile moved, yet she lifted in the air on a wave of flowing orange plasma. The hot air lifted her faster that she had expected it to, sending her flying high into the sky. She could handle that. She popped her hot air bubble, and breathed in the sweet cold air into her scorched lungs. She needed that, she thought as she enjoyed every slice of blissful pain as the air crept back into her starved body. She was enjoying it a bit too much. After she was done mentally rhapsodizing over the wonderful air, she realized that yes, she was falling, and no, it was not slow.   
Violet wasn't too worried. Even though she was still nearly directly over the burning building, she had plenty of space between her and the ground. She enlarged her purple orb a bit, hoping to slow her descent. She was at reasonable speeds and landing distance from the ground when the unexpected happened. She got swept in. The air intake from the inferno was strong and relentless, pulling Violet down as it spun the ball around. She screamed as she twisted in a deadly whirlpool of fire towards death below. Desperately trying to gain lift, she extended the size of her field as far as she could, but to no avail. She was still caught in in the tornado. The entire north wall was about to collapse onto the glowing red pile of other destroyed debris, and unfortunately, was right above her. She was in the flame now, and unable to withstand the heat of the fire against her field, she blacked out. Without the buoyancy she had before, she shot out of the vortex and through the collapsing walls, landing hard on the dusty ground. She rolled about fifteen yards before coming to an unceremonious halt in a pile of dead police.   
The man watched impassively at the scene.  
“Well played,” a smooth voice laconically spoke.  
“Thank you.”  
The female voice continued, “It is a shame that the equipment was lost, but that is a small price. You have done well. Over.” The transmission ended before he could answer. The man spun around on the chair, a smile on his face.   
Perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY DONE WITH THAT CHAPTER!!! *dies* That was long. Seventeen pages and over seven thousand words. I wrote most of that from a wireless keyboard in my bed. I'm currently writing that at elven, and Iscnat wati' to go to sleep. So di;lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll What? Oh. Yrh. Dbyae.
> 
> e_e; That was embarrassing. Anyways, please review this. I LOVE CRITICAL REVIEWS!!! So I'm essentially asking you to hate on whatever detail you can find that is vague, makes no sense, or is over-tropish. Thank you.  
> > END ACT 2


	3. Chapter 3

(Firstly, many thanks to YamisFallenHikari2112, for the first and only fav!)   
(Thank you so much, even though I don't know if you are watching this story. But if you are reading, give yourself a hug manly handshake on my behalf.)   
(Now onto the story! ::D)

==> CHAPTER THREE:  
The glossy-lipped woman shuffled as fast as she could into the cubicle, hampered by a miniskirt and high heels. She fell in a sprawling heap on a rotating chair, taking a minute to catch her breath. As she convinced herself that her hair wasn't unduly harmed, the man sitting behind the desk watched her. The bored expression he wore behind his wire frames plainly showed that he was no stranger to scenes like playing before him, so he waited. The woman, finally restored to proper beauty, swiveled around to face him.   
“You'll never guess what-”  
“Let me try,” he interrupted in an annoyed voice, “You have a scoop for me.”  
“Yes, actually. You know that you know that abandoned garage?”  
He sighed at her 'news' and manner of speech, going back to his typewriter. “They already covered that.. It's been going on for hours.”  
“Yes, but it was knocked down.”  
He grunted. He hadn't expected that.   
“They say there was NSA involvement.” His head popped up, and she smiled. She had his attention. “Daniel. Listen to me.“ She wrapped her arms around him as she whispered confidentially to him. “Two words. Rogue. Supers. Supers... ugh!”  
He snorted laughingly and stood up. “How many people are there right now?”   
“Cameramen, but – no reporters.”  
Twisting out of her grasp, he began to ask her to get a car, but she interrupted him. “It's already set to go.”  
He eyed her suspiciously before setting out the door.   
“This is Daniels Alphard, live from the site of the recent disaster at the abandoned parking garage for the now destroyed theater. For those of you who haven't known, the hunt for the dealers of the east side of the city was narrowed down to this building, but when police tried to enter, they were met by an horde of snipers and armed guards. Although stranded under the building, two platoons of heroic policemen managed to survive without any injuries, until something happened.” He stepped aside, showing the hulking ruins silhouetted against the orange flame. “Rogue supers, in an attempt to,” air quotes. “Save the day, instead manged to destroy the building and then burn down the remains, with the confirmed deaths of at least thirteen police, and over four hundred other lives. Of course, it is more likely that many more than that are truly many more than that.   
“And what about the supers who who caused this disaster? Were they harmed in their murder of hundreds of people? No. This was not some group of unregistered, overpowered teenagers, either. The entire renowned 'Team Incredible', Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible, Invisigirl, and an unnamed super who is suspected to be their son, are missing from the scene. They absconded from the area after one of our reporters attempted to get a statement from them. Currently, the NSA has not released an official report on the disaster,leading one to wonder just how much control the organization really has over-   
Dicker clicked off the television with a press of a button. Turning around, he placed one hand on the chair he refused to sit on for some reason. With tired eyes, the old man looked out at the people in front of his desk.   
“Why?” Eight eyes looked up at him, two sad, two nervous, two missing but not voiceless, and two angry. None said anything. “I don't need an answer.”   
He elaborated, but none of them made a sound. “I would ask you why you didn't contact us first, but I don't want an answer there either. So I guess I am stuck with narrating to you the obvious. Namely, that was stupid. Heroic but stupid.” The angry eyes spoke up with the loud voice of Helen Parr. “All due respect, Mr. Dicker, but I don't remember being part of this fiasco, so I would appreciate it if you'd didn't talk to me as if I were.” Dicker smiled inwardly to himself, making sure it didn't register on his sullen face. She hadn't lost her fire after twenty years. “I apologize, Ms. Parr.” This whole thing was giving him a headache. Wait, it already had. The room sat in silence for a few more moments, feeling like hours.   
“Would you mind telling me what happened in there?” It wasn't like Dicker hadn't been watching the news constantly, but he would like to know what the inside story was. Mr. Inc and Dash began the story, alternating between each other, but somehow it ended with Violet's voice chocking it out between sobs and coughs. “...and then I- the whole place seemed to fall on itself, and the whole thing was a huge fire as I was sucked in, but I don't know what happened after that.”   
He leaned back further in the chair he eventually sat down in, and took a minute to digest this huge pile of information. He rubbed at his temples as he groaned lightly. If it had been hard to understand, it was totally incomprehensible now. Forgetting all possibility that there was a third party involved and somehow taking the blame as lightly as possible seemed like the easiest plan. Dicker doubted it was the wisest, but then again, when was anything in politics decided for the long term effects? And that was the current situation – all political. While Dicker is [was?] going through all this in his head, we switch to the angry set of eyes' point of view.   
You are angry. You are so angry right now. You are angry that your stupid husband got involved in this disaster. You are angry that your idiot husband got your KIDS involved. You are angry that the stupid politicians won't let you save lives. You are angry because life's unfair.   
Rick Dick is speaking again.   
”Do you know what this means?” He sounds tired. You hadn't noticed that. You were angry with him. “It means that this is all going to be blamed on either you, us, or both. It'll mean protests, bills and all sorts of other nasty stuff which'll make life harder for me. It's also going mean that If supers aren't banned, then much tighter regulation will be placed on you folks. And every week we are getting new applications. We have over a thousand supers documented right now, and the number keeps growing. What's going to happen if violence breaks out? The younger the super, it the more powerful and hormone filled they are. Just who we need running around blasting windows with laser beams.“ He sighs. “To be honest, I don't know what's going to happen. I knew that things would come to a head, and this is it. Something's going to happen, but I can't ensure you it's going to be anythin' good.” You all sit there, thinning about what has been said. Suddenly, he gets up. “I have no more to say. You can leave now.”  
You are the first to stand up., and you lead the troupe down the hall. You fume as you walk to the car. You have a serious bone to pick with your husband.  
Rick Dicker stood and watched the Incredi- Parr family leave. Only after they had left did he collapse gingerly into his chair. He was an old man, and he knew it. His opponents knew it. He knew his opponents knew it. And he wasn't going to let anyone treat him like one – the job he had was important. He ran his hands through his thinning hair. Especially now. What a nightmare. What a nightmare. This shouldn't be happening; a disaster like this couldn't happen – not right now! But it had. He sat up and reached for a pencil. Time was of the essence – not too fast, though, or the media would have an even bigger field day than the one they were currently enjoying.   
He put down the pencil and reached for the phone. He dialed for the receptionist, waiting on hold. After about half a minute, she picked up.   
“Hello?”  
“Ms. Salvard? What took you?”  
She sighed into the receiver. “Reporters. I practically had to toss them out physically before they would leave me alone.”  
Ugg. It was worse than he had thought. “Sorry about that. Would you pull together an urgent meeting in my conference room? Stress the priority, please.”  
“Who do you want present?”  
Pause. He thought about this. “Make it the usual, but have Kathryn on standby.”  
“Yes sir. Anything else?”  
“No, thank you. Just make sure they get there within thirty minutes. No matter what.”  
“Okay.”  
“Thank you.” He hung up. Pulling out a file from the drawers behind him, he began pondering the details of what he should do. Whatever it was, it needed to be fast. Grabbing what he wanted, he strode off to a door which he unlocked with a small key that he pulled out of a pocket on the inside of his jacket. The contents of two manila folders were spread out over the small end of long table, and he sat himself down in front of them.  
After twenty minutes of depressing pondering, a dark suit with dark shades stepped quietly in.   
“Mr. Grand?” murmured Richard without looking up, “sit down, would you?” The man wordlessly complied, taking a seat on the extreme opposite of Dicker, who was content to sit in silence until another person entered. A long, dark haired woman in square frames sat herself directly between the two brooding men. “Mr. Dicker. Mr. Grand?” She smiled. “Great to see you. Not so wonderful as to why.”  
“Isn't that the truth,” groaned Dicker. She nodded in assent, then pulled out a file of her own and began to thumb through it. Soon, two more people joined the group, chatting in hushed tones as they entered. All sitting at the table looked up. The newcomers ceased their conversation, acknowledged those already there, and took seats. In this manner the table slowly filled up until ten men and woman were situated in various degrees around it. Dicker stood up, closed the door, and locked it. He returned to his seat, glanced at the clock, and began.   
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. As you should know or deduced by now, we are here to discuss the effects of the fifth street disaster.” A collective sigh rose over the room. “Now, here are only the highest members of the NSA. This is a very confidential meeting, so it goes without saying that whatever is said here, stays here. At risk of your job and thousands of others. So.” Richard leaned back in his chair. “What are our objectives? Firstly, we need to we need to get whatever we can recover out of the scene. Mary, I believe you already have quarantined the area. Doctors are trying to rescue as many men as possible. Naturally, anything unusual or suspicious will be returned to us. But the greater problem is the publicity this will create. It's not like this is anything not to be expected, but we need to curb as much of it as possible.   
”We could either take all the blame, alternately, we could attempt to find out who really caused this. I don't have much time, but I'll summarize what the Parrs told me. Apparently, Mr. Parr and his two oldest children got fed up by what they were seeing as reckless waste of life, suited up and fought their way down into the building. Bob got suspicious that someone had known they were coming, and sent Violet to check it out. She did so, got lost in the building, and punched a hole in the level. The ceiling collapsed on her, she passed out and started a chain reaction which started the destruction of the structure. Gasoline and tar containers busted open, and started the inferno. Dashnell and Mr. Incredible got out the top , but Invisigirl had to make her own way out, which she did, floated into the air, got sucked into the firestorm, and passed out. Again.   
“So in short, it is clearly a scheme set up by the Great Kapow.” Several snickers and plenty of upraised eyebrows were directed at him by the unexpected development.  
“Um... didn't he die recently?”  
Richard chuckled. “The public doesn't know that. Right now, we have a family of supers - some of the best, who are beating themselves up about this, one who very likely actually do so do herself; the city is in a uproar against us, soon the nation will be. Why not direct the blame at a wanted old man who will be found dead in his bed?” Nobody offered any resistance to this. “I know it isn't honest, but,” he groaned, “when has anything ever been?” He looked patronizingly around the table “Of course, I won't do it unless you all agree to it? What do you say?” Murmured assent voiced itself among the table, except for the man at the other end of the room.   
“Why, exactly, must we lie to the public? Why not place the blame where it should go, denounce the Parrs, and tell the nation what really happened?”  
Richard sighed. “Mr. Grant. You ask for an exact answer. I can't give you one. If I could really know what is happening, I would make sure that what is best for the country will be done.”  
“You hear that? 'Best for the country'. Who decides what is best for the country? Why It's Mr. Dicker here who does. I say that we just treat the supers as regular humans. No special privileges, no special protection. The Parrs will be sued for their stupid heroics. It's the logical thing to do.“   
“Mr. Grant, do you not understand? There is a mob outside the from door demanding that action be taken against supers. Action that will start the hiding all over again! If we do as you suggest, we will have fights between super and super. Super and civilians! Battles without any noble purpose, without any regard whatsoever for the lives and properties of others, because there will be no incentive for anything else? They will be punished, but once the damage has been done, it cannot be undone. It that what you want, Mr. Grant?”   
The man in question glared around uncomfortably before settling on shooting daggers at Dicker. After a few minutes of tense silence, Grant spat out his words.   
“Fine. But don't think that I'm not sick of the way in which you overrule any opposition to your poor planning and your power hogging. I'll vote yes- ” Dicker visibly relaxed at his words, “ -this time. I concede for once, but I will not let you shut me up. Far from it.”  
He sighed and stood up to the mix of hostile and sympathetic looks his way. The door slammed as he strode out of the room.   
Collectively, all eyes turned from the swinging door and onto the man opposite from the empty side of the table.  
“Put the blame on Kapow. Don't say anything that would tell otherwise.” Looking at the door, he answered the unspoken question. “Don't worry, Grant won't tell. He's smarter than that. I'll keep you posted.” He made a dismissive motion with his hand. They knew what to do. After the room had emptied, he groaned and sat forward. It was time to make a call.


	4. Chapter 4

==> CHAPTER FOUR:   
Gunshots rang out from a less savory part of town, as they were prone to recently. Sounded like a mad bomber was having a field day over there. Dangerous. But Kathryn lived off dangerous. That wasn't to say she was reckless. Mostly. Although she was mindful [maybe] of a situation in which she might be trapped, she would do everything else her way. And she liked doing things her way and she hated being trapped. So she tried to keep the unpredictable situations to a minimum. Sadly, it looked like this could be one of them. Adjusting her night goggles (what a nasty color – reminded her of vomit), she edged her was down the alley closer to the smoke, before coming out to a pharmacy on the street. Yanking off the goggles, she took a quick look into the store.   
Yep, this was it. So these were the members of the gang they'd been hunting. Interesting. From the window of the store she could make out a group of four black-masked thugs making a break for it. And practically below her nose was the shot up body of an innocent bystander! She kicked at him slightly. He'd live. Now on to more pressing matters! Equipping the nasty goggles again [ugh], she set off across the street in hope of wealth and fame. Or maybe a promotion. That would be a good thing.   
Aww, who was she kidding? She didn't even have the job yet! Still, after reading ever book she could get her hands on involving LAW, she was sure that she'd be able to join the force. Might help if she turned sixteen, though. Now, to take down these guys. She had to do it legally, though. Couldn't just jump in there, stab all those guys without damning evidence (they deserved it) and hope to get anywhere but behind bars. Nope, she intended to keep outside of the jailhouse. Others would be going in – not her.  
The street was abandoned, stretching down in a straight, moonless path devoid of any person or light. Perfect location to stage a crime. Where it met another equally depressing dark road, there was a small store. One of those little places lining the sides of any semi-high traffic pathway, which specializes in selling products for prices the same as any other store, yet with the quality about half as good. The particular one she was interested in looked like someone had taken C-4 to it. The the glass was all blows out (mysteriously enough) from the inside, giving the sidewalk a gentle sprinkling of glass.   
A car ripped down the road swerving dangerously, at a speed that was completely illegal. The headlights made the glass shine like special stardust under the dark canopy of night. Romantic. Venturing into the building, a maze of destroyed and knocked over shelves, Kathryn found the dazed cashier wallowing around in heavily exploded watermelon. The small safe behind the counter was blown open. Empty. A trail of Authentic! Campbell's Soup lead across the street. She proceeded across and into a smelly alley. Literally people just pitched whatever they felt like out here, with no consideration for those who had a functioning nose. Only occasionally was there a dumpster. She glanced in one. And even those were a disposal for dead cats. Ugg.  
Setting off in the direction she last saw the posse, Kathryn continued on her hunt. Her progress was made considerably easier by the loud berating they were giving to one of their teammates. Although not loud enough to be heard against the background noise of the city unless she really strained her ears, the sound nonetheless gave her enough direction to keep her from ever being completely lost as to where they were. Luckily, the group seemed to have slowed after their initial sprint away from the crime scene, so she eventually was just a couple of feet behind them, jumping from shadow to shadow in an attempt to not be noticed. Luckily they didn't seem too concerned about any stalkers.   
She quietly cackled to herself. Their mistake. She could go in for the kill now, or wait until she would be justified, she thought as she longingly caressed where the Dragon headed-staff should be. She wished that the cane she loved so much didn't fall under 'concealed weapons', but that was what the law said, so bluh. Even a gun wasn't legal yet. All she had in the way of blades was two knives, but something was better than nothing, right?   
One of the gang had fallen behind, a large fellow who seemed rather idiotic. She scooted behind a dumpster, a rare member of a dying species in this area, and waited. The big guy was closer now, in the opening between the rows of buildings the alley was surrounded by. If she acted too quickly, she'd be rewarded with a slug of metal in the gut. She bumped to dumpster she was squatting behind, and he wheeled around.   
“Out! Or I'll shoot!”  
She couldn't help but squeal and shriek slightly as she loudly came out from th her blockade. It added to the atmosphere. Luckily, she had thought to ditch her the goggles before making herself known – she looked suspicious enough as he barked at her to put her hands it the air. She did so before falling to the floor, shrieking at she sight of the scary dangerous man and his nasty gun – the perfect freaked-out-girl act. He chuckled slightly without lowering his gun.   
“Don't worry, I'll won't shoot you if you don't misbehave.” She shuffled back a bit more, back towards the side with the dumpster, while lowering one hand to her knives.   
“Come here. I just might play with you, that's all.”  
“No! Don't, please! I'll scream!”  
The Brute motioned to his, gun, now hanging by his side. “I don't think so.” Kathryn made a gargled noise as he called for the others while mentioning how fun she would be. She smiled inwardly. Perfect. How many claims did the guy want to give her? As long as she didn't die, this would be an open-and-shut case of self-defense!   
“What's so funny, girl? I'll shoot that smile off your face!”  
Welp, maybe she didn't smile so inwardly.  
She took a step backwards as he cocked his gun threateningly. Really? What did he take her for – some easily scared girl, afraid that he'd shoot her? She doubted he'd actually kill her. Unfortunately, for him, she might. Hehehe.  
The knife embedded itself in his side, and he fell down wheezing in a red mess. The gun, which he dropped, she took the time to graciously kick away. Wouldn't want to get the floor messy. She bent down, cackling madly. Seriously, did you really think she could hold it in any longer?   
“On two charges of assault, I find you – guilty!” Her gavel was her fist, and her desk suddenly went out cold. Hehehe.  
But it looks like Sir Desk's loyal friends have arrived to give the Draconian Legislator :~Larcerator?~: more charges against themselves. Hmm. That didn't sound right. Oh well.   
She ducked for cover behind the dumpster, just in time to miss a spurt of bullets, bouncing off the wall behind her and into window. Seriously, did anybody live around her? She could hear one approach as she put the goggles on again. There was a very unmanly shriek as her second knife found their shoulder. What were they so worried about? It wasn't like he wouldn't live or anything. Soft, quick footsteps neared her, telling the 'little girl' to come out if she wanted to stand a running chance against him. Who are you talking about? Could it possibly be yourself, Mr. Soft Voice? Whoever soft voice was, she met him with a good kick where it would hurt.   
Kathryn almost felt sorry for him as he crumpled to the floor, moaning. The guy with the knife in his shoulder didn't have the thoughtfully good manners of his friend to stay down. He pulled the knife out and gave her a few nasty stabs. That wasn't very nice. She made up her mind that she was going to teach him better manners, her way [heh, he... ouch, that hurt], as soon as the ground stopped being such a fun place to lay bleeding on. At least, she did before the dumpster decided it would be a good idea to blow up right beside her. It was around then that you started to rethink the viability of your plan after shrapnel flew into your back. Needless to say, it hurt while it lasted.   
Dicker slammed the phone down in disgust. Nobody was where he needed them today. So even his kid intelligence agent (Not that she knew he knew. It was weird, but it worked and neither of them asked questions.) was responding to his urgent calls. Seriously, what could a fifteen-year-old girl be doing at this hour that wouldn't be near a phone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :~Ugg. It's hard writing her. Tell me if I did well – you do remember this is my first fic? Anyways, give out all the hard critiquing that you can. Please, this is the sound of me getting on my knees and writing this: jjust know that I want [yes, please do] you to bash me. Whatever unclear, hard point in my excessively verbose method of inscribing you find, relate to my avatar. I don't really care if people like this, as long as someone reads it! ::P~:


	5. Chapter 5

==> CHAPTER FIVE:

She was walking down the sparsely-lit road, hands in pockets, kicking up dust and pebbles, like usual. It had been a boring night. Far more boring than the boring life she lead – at least normally there was do other than slouch around and feel sorry for herself, but no. Mom was out, and everyone else was off doing something. It wasn't like there was even anyone else out on the streets that she could play with. Haha, maybe they had learned better by now; it sure was about time. But far more likely they were just asleep. On a night like this was when she would be found slouching as she slowly made her way back to the little place she called home. A night when nothing memorable happened. But this was not going to be that kind of night for her.

Because she heard explosions. Real explosions, not your boring type – these were the real deal. And real explosions were awesome when you are this ambiguous female character. [You are not going to get my name, so stop trying!] As smoke wafted up above the silhouetted rooftops, she smiled for the first time that night. Maybe it wouldn't be so boring after all. The explosions were some ways off, but there was a good idea she had of where she needed to go. With her hands still firmly pocketed, but without the apathetic, back-breaking, pouty walking position she had earlier, she proceeded across the road. As she ventured further into the Alleyway, the more grimy the area became. After a while, the only visible landmarks there was were the stacks of trash so common to the alleys of this region. She sniffed at a dead cat that was hanging half out of a garbage can. Home sweet home.

She arrived at a intersection, where there was a small store that had been begging to be robbed for the past few months. She honestly wondered that it had taken this long for it to happen. The smoke had mostly dissipated, but glass that was going to take forever to get out her shoes was scattered over the sidewalk as further proof that something had happened here. As if the fact that there was a dazed guy dressed in overalls and a watermelon poking at an empty safe blown on its side wasn't enough.

She stepped over the glass, making sure to kick the largest, sharpest pieces well into the street. Suddenly, she stopped. She looked around from the middle of the intersection as she realized she had completely no idea as to where she should be headed next. A small voice in the back of her head whispered that the Den might be a really good idea right now, but she pushed it down as quickly as the thought came up. Stupid lousy voices of reason. There was no way she was going home now, not after this night. Why, she had practically seen a robbery right under her nose! When she found whoever was responsible, she was planning to punch them in the face a few times, kick them into the nearest pile of trash, and and make sure that the good-for-nothing knew what she thought about doing such a thing. Seriously? She'd give him a slap on the back and tell him that it was awesome.

A car's headlights broke her out of her reverie, and she stepped out of its way, only to have it nearly careen into her as a tire blew out. She had to stifle a laugh, but that was boring, so she let it out after the driver had taken one look at the tire, one look at the store, and proceeded to find the nearest phone. Her laughter redoubled after she realized what epic mess would be created after a platoon or two sped past her booby trap. She almost wanted to stick around and watch if it wouldn't end her up at the police office. She really wasn't that good at lying, especially when it was something as potentially hilarious as this. So unless one of the officers was a pisionic super, well, she didn't bring her bladekind wherever she was planning on going.

That raised the question back to the forefront: where was she going, anyways? She really didn't know. At the moment, she had headed off in a random direction, and made sure to take a look down every smelly back way she passes. And there wasn't really much of any way to be concealed from view in there, unless you were a member of the population who took interest in diving into piles of fetid compost. [At the last census count, zero.] Yet she still hadn't seen anyone. It didn't help that the nightlit alleys she was squinting at were so dark she could see hardly ten feet down it. Whatever. She thought she was a movement in this one, so so goddammit, she was going down this alley so hard, it would... Alright, that metaphor bested her. She was really going to have to try harder.

There seemed to be some sort of odd... was that a water melon? Wow, what kind of theif would drag the thing all the way out here, only to leave it? She kicked it open for good measure, and... knives. Alright, that was mildly disconcerting. But that wouldn't stop her from taking a few.

Feeling much more prepared now, she set off it an arbitrary direction. And and another, and another, and another, Alright, she was really lost now.

She'd been running for the past few minutes, and she bent down with her hands on her knees as she took deep, regulated breaths before coming up as soon as she could breathe normally. Glancing around for any familiar signs, she turned up a blank. Nope. There was nothing but all-too similar piles of cigarettes and soup cans in the thin passageways. It wasn't as dirty as most places were, though. It seemed like there were more businesses in this area, and less tramps and hobos. She walked out to a street, and glanced up and down it. Nothing – wait. She could've sworn that she saw someone. Whoever it was, they were after someone else with a vengeance, and she thought she knew just who it was.

She jogged towards the parking lot the person had vanished from. Gravel crunched beneath her feet before she ducked behind a parked car. Somewhere, someone was awake. Strange how empty it was. She'd never seen the roads so devoid of people. Normally there was at least someone. She was in the back of the building the parking lot was for, yet she saw nobody. There was just a chain link fence, and she suspected she'd hear if anyone tried to jump it. She stalked down one side of the fence, until she ended up at the road again. A small dark driveway lead to someone's house, so she turned down it. If she was lost before, she was really lost now.

Trekking across a backyard that desperately needed both fertilizer and a lawns mover, she took the time to search the sky for any directional guidance. But between the moonless night, the cloud cover, and the ambient light from the city that kept the horizon aglow, she couldn't make anything out. A voice it the back of her head reminded her that the city was basically to the east of her, but that didn't really hep her find the... yep, that was definitely the same person. And they definitely had the same target as her. She just knew.

She would have run after the trail at full speed even without the barking dogs chasing her to the edge of the neighborhood. After wandering the streets again while catching fleeting glimpses of her quarry, she knew she was close, but she didn't know just where they were. Ugg, this was starting to be pointless. Why did she trek halfway across the state to waste her night on this, again? She was nearly about to give up and stack back when there was a girlish squeal/scream nearby.

Even closer, there was the ominous sound of a gun being cocked. There was another squeak and then a muffled grunt. She nearly dashed out into the light of the streetlight when she stopped short. This is why the streets were empty. You can't think. Spades slick is standing in front of you, clutching a knife and a gun. And he's pissed off.

At least, more than usual.

[AN:: Man, was she scared. Even made me change vo:ce and tense!]

You cower back and hope he didn't see you. Thankfully, he's continuing off, but it's a while before you pull yourself back out of the pile of compost you are pressed against. Your eyes go wide as you take in the view in front of you. There is a little demon of a girl running around, and she's not only fighting the Midnight Crew, she's winning. Boxcars is out cold on the ground with a knife in his hefty frame, and Droog is curled up on himself, moaning softly. How uncharacteristically not-smooth.

Slick just got a knife to the shoulder, and he's... he's pulling the knife. Out of his shoulder. Okaaaaaaay... You can't help but wonder at that before a dumpster (where'd that come from?) blows up in a ball of flame. You pull your sorry self off of the mucky ground, rubbing trash off your face. Your bad eye hurts slightly, and seems slightly stunned, but you don't think it's permanent. You sure hope it isn't. Losing your eye would be the worst thing that could happen to you. Short of losing an arm. That would suck royally.

Everyone's lying in various positions on the ground, except for a little round guy who's hopping around with the widest eyes you've every seen on a gangster, or anyone else, for that matter. He could be rather cute. Like, puppy dog cute. Too bad for him. She fished her metaphorical fingers around in the guy's mind, trying to get a grasp of how it worked. He was giving her a headache the kid's – even though he was probably a full decade ahead of her, she could help but think of him that way – was the ditsiest guy you'd ever known. He wouldn't keep his mind a thought for more than a second before darting off like some kind of bug-eyed squirrel to the next one. A really short squirrel.

Maybe he'd just thrown some bombs, but he didn't have the resistance that most people had to you – wait, there it was. Augg, you lost it. You need to calm down, and go back into third person. See, it worked – she nearly got it. And there it was again. Just what she'd been looking for. Not letting the thought get away from her again, she brought his mind to a standstill – it wasn't really that hard, and took control over him.

Slightly grimacing as she sat back to a wall, with one hand over her eyes and grabbing both her temples, she tested out her new extension. Suddenly, she lost control and dove backwards as a nearby roof went up in a fireball.

Oh my god she had to do that again.

The little fellow was sitting, dazedly staring at the cloud forming over the next block over, until he jerked back to life at her command. Another crater suddenly formed in the road with a cloud of smoke, but despite her urge to go ducking under the nearby awning, she kept a hold of the kid's mind. However, Spades and Droog were coming, at least by the sound of the footsteps rapidly closing in. Right about now, she wished she could see what the little bomber could. From her crouched position on the wrong side away from Slick, she couldn't see anything.

Using the distraction of a impromptu dance routine, albeit jerky, from the little kid, she scrambled up to a rooftop shore she could see better. From here she blew up a Presidential Postal Office Drop Box Residential Class sitting across the street, and, finding that explosion not the size she had been aiming for, completely obliterated a house with a foreclosed sign in the front. She was getting the hang of it. Her next target practice was the half-dead hedge that needed to be dug up anyways, and you decide that it is far too annoying and inexpressive to write this way. where going INTO second persion

Your name is [EXPUNGED], and you are having way too much fun. You dodge debris from the lawn and frame of that house as it falls on you, and select a parked semi as your next target. You do whatever feels like it'll put the most power into your next blast and aim for beneath the tractor. Only slightly off, you watch in unconstrained glee as two halves of the vehicle sail fifty feet over head and explode behind you, taking a building and a half with them. You give Droog another kick in the crotch by proxy, and fail miserably to wince sympathetically as Slick gives your dwarven host a hard drubbing with a horse hitcher. Heaven knows where he found that antique thing.

You briefly consider consider sending him skywards, but after a not-so-brief internal discussion, you decide reluctantly that he being the good buyer of your Mom's that he is, you'd better not send him flying of of the city unless you want to do the same later. In the meantime you blow another dumpster up with way too much force. The fireball it creates rises at least twenty feet, maybe more, in the air.

This is way too much fun. After taking out a passing car, you find that, annoyingly enough, you are going to have to stop, as Nine (isn't that his name? You can't really remember.) seems to be suffering from a little psychic over-exertion. You think you might see some blood. You don't see Spades or Droog anywhere, so you suspect they they took cover somewhere. Boxcars too, for that matter. He must have picked himself up and ran off... nope. He's bending over and picking up a dropped axe and ambling over to that girl. With a thoughtfully mild explosion, you send him flying into a wall, and he's out cold again. That guy never really gets anything done.

Crawling along the rooftop to get a better view for yourself, you turn back to the girl. You'd almost forgotten about her. Normally you wouldn't give a flying flip about her, but she was showing quite the display of Moxie (at least 30 MP!). Not to mention you need some more plans to make. You're been running short lately, and this girl seems interesting enough. After glancing around to make sure the coast is clear, you jump down from the flat roof. Suddenly and painfully, you catch your foot on the ladder while jumping the way down, and twist enough to land funny on your other foot. Pain shoots up your leg, as you curse aloud. Couldn't for at least just this one night, something not go annoyingly wrong? You absolutely hate your bad luck.

Hobbling over to where she's lying facedown in the muddy concrete blown off from the explosion, you give her a once-over. It's rather hard to tell, thanks to the liberal coating of trash on her, but she seems... not too beat up? You bend over and punch her until she wakes up. She's all angles and protruding bones. You give her a solid place of eighth from bottom on the List of The Most Stunning, of which you are – naturally – on the top. You keep up a regimen of kicks until she finally gets up and glares at you.

And those eyes. Wow – they're gorgeous blue-green orbs, almost teal, that seem to glow slightly on this moonless night. Wow that was a really weird thought. You'll have to remember to tell her that, just to mess with her. In the meantime, you'll consider bumping her standing up a notch or two on the List. After checking you out as hard as you are doing to her, one of her legs gives out and she collapses onto her back. You make no effort to catch her.

None-too-friendlily, you ask her how she's doing. She responds with a shark's grin and you decide to leave her standing where it is. In the tense silence that follows, you hear sirens and then crashing somewhere in the distance. Eventually, she realizes that you aren't planning on pulling her up, and she stands while leaning on the wall. You set off at a brisk pace in the general direction of what might be a hospital. There's no telling when Slick will decide to come back out, and you know him enough to know that when he does, he won't be happy. Smugly, you listen behind you as the girl tries her best to follow you, failing epically, until your ankle makes itself known to you again.

Wonderful. You stand bent over while rubbing your throbbing foot. The other girl has found some stick she's using as a cane and is making her way up to you. You try to get ahead of her, but every step feels like you are walking on exposed bone. After she catches up to you, she whacks you over the head with her stick before sitting down. She's bleeding from a stab mark or two, probably Slick's work. Not only that, she's also got little pieces of twisted metal embedded through her shirt that keep it pinned tight to her. That... looks really painful.

She seems to think the same thing, because her even though her face is twisted into some kind of creepy half-smile, her eyes clearly show the discomfort she's in. She walks up to you, but you refuse to let her get ahead. Walking is apparently almost as painful for her as it is for you, although you suspect that any movement would be hard to pull off in her condition. Eventually, after refusing to acknowledge her presence, you find that she had decided the pulling the shards of dumpster out of her chest and back is a better idea than just letting them sit, and little rivulets of blood are spilling down her front where her shirt can't sop it up. She keeps falling behind as she eases them out, but she catches up to your miserably exaggerated limp.

She's stopped again, and you find yourself watching as she pulls a piece much deeper than the previous ones out of her side. Her face is contorted into a grimace which conveys everything you already knew about the procedure. Before you can stop yourself, you suck in a breath as it tears itself away with a crimson stain; she stifles a yell. After recovering for a while with her hands on her side, she moves much more freely, although with a hand pressed to her side. It is obvious that she could easily stride away from you, yet she stays with you as the two of you limp over the dusty sidewalk. The silence is almost physically painful.

Wait that's your foot.

After five minutes or so, you pass by you pass the entrance to the neighborhood you were chased out of earlier, and, to your great delight, you find that about there are two giant charred scars in the earth where there used to be houses. Fires have broken out all along the dual craters, and the silhouettes of several people and a fire engine are clear against the flames lighting up the night sky. The damage and debris spans far ahead.

You had no idea it flew that far.

Either she can see into your mind, or you were smiling, because your partner breaks the tension by asking if you were involved with this. You notice that both of you are ignoring the possibility of medical help from the firefighters, even though one of you is still bleeding, and the other can hardly walk. Eventually, you realize that she was expecting a response, and you cryptically offer one. She accepts it with a frightening grin.

"You do realize that that is officially counted as an act of vandalism, and we have laws specifically pertaining to that. Seeing as though you are still withing city limits, they are applicable, and legally binding under these circumstances."

Seriously, what does she care?

"Did you cause more than fifteen thousand dollars is damages?" You think about the fun you were having. What you would have given to have Boxcar's knocked out expression on film.

"Hell yes I did!"

"The investigation has determined that explosives were used in the incident, directly causing the vandalism seen." You aren't really sure that explosives directly cause the damage – for that matter, whether or not explosives were actually used. The last time you checked out all the super laws of the city was never. If you 'enrolled' in a super education program, you'd certainly find out more, but there is no way you will ever register your name with a government program whose mission statement, the cause of much bitter joking at the den, includes 'the systematic categorization and protection of specially endowed members of the population'. Seriously.

Her face grows serious; there is a glint of... mirth? Menace? You are strongly getting the feeling that they are one and the same to her. Honestly, you really don't know know what to make of this girl's expressions. Tapping her staff on the ground for emphasis, she announces that you have been found guilty of a first class criminal mischief and by extension, a "second class felony, punishable by hanging by the throatstem."

You stop short.

What. What? What!

A SECOND CLASS FELON?

A SECOND CLASS FELON AND A WANTED CRIMINAL!?

A SECOND CLASS FELON AND A WANTED CRIMINAL WHO DESTROYED NEARLY EIGHT CITY BLOCKS?

IN ONE NIGHT.

YES.

SO Y8S.

What are the guys at the Den going to have to say that could top that? Not to mention you took on the Midnight Crew and won epically?

"You seem awfully excited about that," observes the girl, with a wry grin to match your maniacal one.

OF COURSE you are going to be excited. It's not like you are one of those SUCKERS who get hung every third Friday – you are [NAME UNDISCLOSED], and you are going to enjoy this. You keep walking in limping exhilaration, and you hardly notice when you almost run into the police cruiser. It sure is a lot faster limping down a cleared road than walking through piles of trash while trying to catch a crazy girl. And zigzagging. That was also a thing.

You are at the bombed store, and from the constant coming and going of muted vehicles, they must have cleared the glass. The blown out tires of this car tell it took them a while to figure out what was going on. A news van, trying to get a story before the sun comes up soon, was completely totaled after careening into a lamp pole. Stupid idiots. The girl looks like she was intending to stop here, and you can't really blame her. You ask her if she will turn you in.

"I don't think I can do that. There is a notable lack of witnesses, and you have yet to make a confession. Therefore, more evidence must be collected!"

Bellowing from a corner of the store with a flashlight, an officer lumbers out and swings the beam in your general direction. "YOU THERE. GIRL." needs to get over to him this instant, so your partner takes the chance to push you back a bit and step out. Before she walks away, she asks who she would be hunting. "Mindfang," you inform her; she reminds you that next time you won't get away.

She strides into the light, while you hobble into familiar shadows.

The whole of the painful mile and a half you mull over that night, but it's only at the door of the Den that you realize that you never told her about her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG SHE IS SUUU FUN TO WRITE!!!!!
> 
> Hehe, tell me how I d:D!


	6. Welp.

Since this is getting a LOT less attention that I was hoping for, and I don't see it getting any more, (hint ~ it's related to Incredibles) I'm decided to discontinue this fic. If anyone wants to carry it on, contact me ~ I had some big plans for it. 

Anywho.   
~/anzkji.


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